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A hundred years ago, shantyboat communities could be found along many rivers in the US. Historian Gregg Andrews went in-depth to research these communities, inspired in part by the discovery of a personal connection to them, which resulted in a book called “Shantyboats and Roustabouts: The River Poor of St. Louis, 1875 to 1930.” In this episode, I talk with Gregg about those shantyboat communities. After Gregg describes how he got interested in shantyboat communities, he describes what a shantyboat was and who lived in them, what it was like to live in one of these communities and their frontier-like culture, some of the characters he came across, including Louis Seibt and Rose Mosenthein, the legal basis shantyboaters used to defend their communities (often successfully), and their eventual dissolution.

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You probably know a little bit about Hannibal, Missouri, because of the books written by a guy named Mark Twain, but I bet you don’t know much about the history of African Americans who’ve lived in Hannibal, even though Hannibal has had African American residents from its earliest days. I didn’t until I talked with Faye Dant, founder of a Hannibal museum called Jim’s Journey.

In this episode, Dant fills me in on the history that’s been hard to come by. We talk about her deep family roots in Hannibal and Missouri, and how the lack of recognition for Black history in Hannibal inspired her to create the museum. She describes how she researches the history of the area’s African American communities, and what she learned about the first African Americans in Hannibal. She gives an overview of the city’s Black neighborhoods and how African Americans weren’t allowed to be in many Hannibal neighborhoods after dark.

She describes the limited economic and educational opportunities available to African Americans in town, and her own experience going through the public schools as they integrated. We talk about the foundations of community life, and a couple of people who left an outsized mark on the area’s history: Joe Douglas and George Coleman Poage. We wrap up with a discussion of what she learned about Mark Twain growing up in Hannibal and what she thinks about the way Hannibal presents Mark Twain today.

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Our summer road trip down the Great River Road continues in this episode. We start just after Lake Pepin and make our way to the Mississippi’s confluence with the Ohio River at Cairo, Illinois. Along the way, I’ll comment on the following places: the Upper Mississippi River National Fish & Wildlife Refuge; Winona, Minnesota; in Wisconsin: Alma, Fountain City, La Crosse, and Prairie du Chien; Dubuque, Iowa, and Galena, Illinois; the Quad Cities of Illinois and Iowa; in southeast Iowa: Muscatine, Burlington, Fort Madison, and Keokuk; in Illinois: Nauvoo, Quincy, Grafton, Alton, Chester, Shawnee National Forest, and Cairo; in Missouri: Hannibal, St. Louis, Sainte Genevieve, and Cape Girardeau, plus a few places in between these. I obviously won’t be going into great depth about any particular place but instead want to give you a sense of the variety of attractions and experiences you can expect along the Mississippi River, with some picks about my favorite spots (and where to get good food and drinks).